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⇱ HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2: What's the Difference? | DigitalOcean


HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2: What's the Difference?

Updated on March 18, 2022
πŸ‘ HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2: What's the Difference?

The author selected the Society of Women Engineers to receive a donation as part of the Write for DOnations program.

Introduction

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, is an application protocol that has been the de facto standard for communication on the World Wide Web since its invention in 1989. From the release of HTTP/1.1 in 1997 until recently, there have been few revisions to the protocol. But in 2015, a reimagined version called HTTP/2 came into use, which offered several methods to decrease latency, especially when dealing with mobile platforms and server-intensive graphics and videos. HTTP/2 has since become increasingly popular, with some estimates suggesting that around a third of all websites in the world support it. In this changing landscape, web developers can benefit from understanding the technical differences between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, allowing them to make informed and efficient decisions about evolving best practices.

After reading this article, you will understand the main differences between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, concentrating on the technical changes HTTP/2 has adopted to achieve a more efficient Web protocol.

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About the author(s)

Education, Training, Consulting

πŸ‘ Timothy Nolan
Timothy Nolan
Editor
Senior Technical Editor
See author profile

Former Senior Technical Editor at DigitalOcean, fiction writer and podcaster elsewhere, always searching for the next good nautical pun! Areas of expertise include Node.js, PostgreSQL, CSS, JavaScript.

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Awesome tutorial thanks ! I was always wondering what’s the difference between HTTP/1 and HTTP/2 (all I knew that is HTTP/2 is more faster) now it’s more clear.

Thanks for the article! Love the detail and simple explanation between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2.

In this article, you were able to describe in detail the difference between these two protocols. Honestly, I could not even imagine that there a huge amount of differences. Even in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2, there is no such detailed info. Thanks!

A very detailed guide, thank you very much.

Thanks for the interesting article. Recently I read an article (Medium) where the author compares the operation of the https:// protocol with the activities of carrier pigeons. It looks strange, but the article is interesting and entertaining

Didn’t know that HTTP / 2 differs from HTTP / 1.1… Thank you for the article.

thanks for your sharing. It’s more clear to me now

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